Chapter 387: Post‑War Reconstruction

The starlight of Gui Xu pierced the clouds, casting mottled bronze on the scorched earth. Ao Li, barefoot, stepped across the cracked riverbed, Golden Blood seeping into the fissures, the dead Spiritual Vein arched up from the ground like a revived flood dragon. Dragon Clan priests were forming a formation and chanting; seventy‑two coiling dragon pillars rose from the ground, but instead of auspicious clouds, they were entwined with Pure Spirit Vines modified by Dark Abyss Society mycelium.

"The Spirit Pivot in the Third Quadrant is still polluted." The mechanical prosthetic eye of Qing Lin flashed with data streams, his right arm had been replaced with a Mo School‑crafted replica of the God‑Slaying Crossbow. The repairing Kunlun Mountains suddenly trembled, the ridge split open a massive mouth, spewing magma mixed with withered spores. Ten Dragon Clan youths immediately formed a formation; the Inverse Scale jetters no longer emitted dragon fire, but a cleanser mixed with Time Whale Brain Fluid.

####【Dragon Clan·Chain of Purifying World】

On the shore of the Eastern Sea, the surviving thunder‑dragon herd were wailing. Between their scales parasitized tumor‑like spirit cores, which exuded black Brain Fluid on every full moon. Ao Li drove the Boundary‑Cutting Blade into the coastline, the fluctuations of chaotic spirit marrow forming a circular barrier on the sea surface. Within the barrier, Dragon Clan Elders were performing a forbidden ritual—melting the Dark Abyss Society‑captured Sacred Skeleton Guards into Purifying World anchor chains.

"Lock the Penglai Spiritual Vein!" Elder Zhu Yin's spine detached, turning into a bronze giant dragon that bit the boiling Sea Eye. When the first thousandth anchor chain sank to the seabed, the sea surface suddenly displayed graffiti of a silver‑haired infant, and the Pure Spirit Vine began to grow wildly at a bizarre angle.

####【Ling Xiao Pavilion·Miasma of Cognition】

Inside the Taiyi Academy of Ling Xiao Pavilion, Qing Xu was teaching the Infant Breath‑Guiding Manual. When the children's hand gestures formed in an instant, the classroom wall suddenly seeped black ink, the strokes of the Taiyi runes reassembled within the ink stains into a Dark Abyss Sacred Scripture. Real Person Zi Xiao swung a sword toward the source of pollution, but the blade passed through a void image—the ink was actually the children's altered cognitive projections.

"It's the seventh time." Qing Xu wiped cold sweat from his forehead; the hem of his Dao robe was crawling with mycelial patterns. Outside, the rebuilt Demon‑Slaying Stele Forest was undergoing a mutation; the names of the martyrs in the inscriptions seeped quantum ink, forming the twin children's palm prints under moonlight.

####【Mo School·Spore Workshop】

Inside the Mo School's mechanical city, Gong Xu Yan's successor Gong Xu Yue was calibrating a new sowing machine. At the moment the gears meshed, the hatch suddenly burst open, golden wheat seeds transmuted in the air into eye‑shaped spores. "Activate purification protocol!" Her mechanical arm launched a molecular saw, only to find Ao Li's face appearing on the surface of the spores.

In the secret workshop three levels underground, three hundred Creation Furnaces were humming. What they forged was not farming tools but cognitive filters infused with fragments of the Abyss Return Ruler. When the seventy‑second furnace was activated, the copper mirror that emerged suddenly reflected the smiling face of a black‑haired infant, and the overseeing craftsman's pupils split into Compound Eyes.

####【Wu Clan·Blood‑Ritual Afterimage】

Elder Wu Xian stood before the rebuilt Passing‑to‑Afterlife Platform, the turtle shell in his hand suddenly sprouted fangs. The blood‑ritual had reached its seventh day, and amid the chants of three hundred Wu priests a silver‑bell‑like laughter intermingled. When the waters of the Passing Pool rippled, the reflection was not of ancestral heroes but of three hundred sixty cosmic embryos floating in a jade basin.

"High Priest!" the young witch suddenly screamed, her palm revealing Lin Jin's Star Sand‑transformed right‑hand totem. The torches around the altar all turned together, their flames outlining in the void the neural pathways of a Time Whale carcass, the ends of which connected to the rebuilding Dragon Clan sanctuary.

####【Buddhist Sect·Formless Calamity】

Within the newly completed Stupa Forest, Master Hui Ming's golden body was covered in mycelium. When the Sanskrit chant of the Diamond Sutra resonated through the heavens, the characters of the scripture suddenly detached from the scroll, forming the Dark Abyss Society's sacred emblem in the air. The eyes of the eighteen Arhat statues began to turn, and the ritual implements in their hands had, at some point, become toys of the twin children.

"Amitabha…" Master Hui Ming's prayer beads suddenly scattered, and where the sandalwood beads rolled, tumor‑like spirit flowers sprouted. When the disciples reached to collect them, they found each bead contained a curled miniature cosmic embryo, sucking the incense‑wish energy to grow.

####【Xuan Yuan Family·Gui Xu Totem】

Xuan Yuan Hao stood on the rebuilt Observatory, his third eye seeping jade. When the Star Chart was calibrated to the Gui Xu bearing, the bronze celestial instrument suddenly went berserk, and the bronze beasts of the Twenty‑Eight Mansions spat out black Brain Fluid. Within the star sea where the Brain Fluid gathered, he saw Ao Li's newly formed Inverse Scale reconstituting—each Dragon Scale's pattern matched perfectly with the cosmic embryos in the jade basin.

"Patriarch!" the guard presented a stone slab found at the reconstruction site. The slab's surface bore ancient Dragon script, which translated into the babbling of a black‑haired infant: "Cognition... game... restart..."

####【Dark Surge】

Ao Li stroked the newly formed Inverse Scale, and his fingertips conveyed the heartbeat frequency of the cosmic embryos. Within Lin Jin's Star Sand‑transformed right hand, Nirvana Fire was achieving a subtle balance with the mycelium. Before them floated three hundred sixty water mirrors, each reflecting reconstruction scenes across the continent—rice stalks in spirit fields flowing with quantum radiance, the talismans drawn by schoolchildren bearing Sacred Skeleton patterns, and even the newly forged Mo School plowheads concealed cognitive spores.

"The celestial offering ceremony seven days from now..." Lin Jin's vocal cords emitted mechanical static, the Vermilion Bird totem in his throat flickering, "The twin children have prepared a new stage for us."

Outside, thunder roared suddenly, and the rebuilding Demon‑Slaying Stele Forest collectively turned. The martyrs' names in the inscriptions seeped Golden Blood, coalescing in the downpour into graffiti of a silver‑haired infant. When the first lightning struck, the infant in the graffiti blinked and spat a crimson tongue toward Ao Li.